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Justice News

Department of Justice

U.S. Attorney’s Office

Middle District of Alabama

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Jury Finds Montgomery Man Guilty Of Identity Theft And Bank Fraud

Montgomery, Alabama - Edmund Lee McCall, 39 years old of Montgomery, Alabama, was found guilty yesterday of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, and six counts of aggravated identity theft after a five day trial held before United States District Court Judge William H. Albritton. The same jury found United States Postal employee Vanessa Valease Gordon not guilty of the same charges.

McCall was the leader of a criminal conspiracy that ran from approximately 2004 to 2009 in Montgomery, Alabama, and elsewhere in the United States. McCall directed others to steal mail from the United States Postal Service that included credit cards and other personal information. McCall then sent runners to pick up the mail and bring it to his home in Montgomery where he used an online service to obtain basic biographical information on the mail theft victims.

Once he had this basic biographical information, McCall contacted his co-conspirators in Georgia who could access credit reports from Experian. The co-conspirators gathered additional biographical information such as the dates of birth, addresses, and social security numbers of the victims. Once a victim’s credit report was accessed and the information gathered, the co-conspirators sent the information back to McCall, who would then activate or reactivate credit cards in the name of the unsuspecting victims. McCall further used a number and voice masking phone service called “Spoofcard” to activate the credit cards.

McCall also had fake identifications made for himself and his co-conspirators in case they were required when using the victims’ credit cards. He and his co-conspirators then used the credit cards to purchase items and take cash advances for themselves. Altogether, there were more than one hundred and ten victims in this case, with losses to their financial institutions totaling $656,417.46.

McCall faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 to 30 years imprisonment on the conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud count, and two years on each count of aggravated identity theft.

The case was investigated by the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the United States Secret Service. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Denise O. Simpson, Assistant United States Attorney Tommie B. Hardwick, and Assistant United States Attorney Donald Valeska. Assistance was also provided by the Internal Revenue Service in Montgomery, Alabama, and the Georgia and Alabama Bureaus of Investigation.